In a communication network such as the Internet, a server can provide information for displaying a document in which text, an image and voice are mixed together (called hypertext hereafter) as a home page. A client can edit the hypertext for display in the form of a document. An application program or a device to display such hypertext is called a browser. Hypertext defines a character string to be displayed and a format thereof (including the size of a character) and describes an explanation of a file (text, image and voice, etc.) to be linked. Such hypertext is described in HTML (Hypertext MARKUP LANGUAGE) language, for example.
When a client browser receives hypertext, it displays a character string or a explanatory note written in the hypertext according to the format thereof. When a user selects the explanatory note, the browser links to a file based on the file name (called link file name) written in the hypertext in association with the explanatory note to display the file in the display screen. Also, when the file to be linked is voice, it is reproduced in the client side for output.
The browser is installed on a computer such as a general purpose personal computer for execution. Recently, improvements in voice recognition technology allow a user to input voice instead of keyboard characters.
Input by voice is effective for a stereotypical character string such as "forward" (proceeding to the next display screen), "backward" (proceeding to the previous display screen) and reload commands which can be input orally through the browser.
However, the user has to point to the explanatory note of the file to be linked with a mouse and can not orally instruct the display or the file to be linked.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a browser which allows voice input without requiring prepared hypertext.